Cause and Effect
by Plitzie
Summary: Harry Potter finds himself in a world turned upside down by fate.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 – An Exceptionally Bad Start

Harry woke up to a whispering around him. He kept his eyes shut, trying to remember the dream he had the night before. It was about his parents. He could remember fragments, but they were slipping faster and faster away from him as he fought to grasp them. He opened his eyes, and with a jolt, remembered it was Christmas! He reached over to his night table, collected his glasses pieces, and magicked them back together (Neville had stepped on them last night in search of his toad, Trevor). He stretched his long arms up, yawned, and abruptly realized everyone was staring at him.

"Harry – I – I don't kn-know what h-h-happened," Ron stammered. Harry looked at the foot of his bed. There were bits and pieces of what may have once been wrapping paper, but were now smoldering bits of ash. The sudden smell of burnt rubber hit Harry full in the face. "But…when? Why? Who?" Harry couldn't help but ask. His roommates all shook their heads, indicating that they didn't know. "Oh no…oh no…no, it can't be…" Harry buried his head in his pillow, unable to muffle the sobs coming from him. His roommates glanced uneasily around, and all but Ron gathered their presents and quietly sneaked to the common room. Ron walked timidly over to Harry, tripping on his yellow fuzzy bunny slippers, and kind of sat/crashed onto Harry's bed.

"Harry, I don't know what happened. We all just woke up and saw what you see now. Is – is there anything I could do to help?…" Ron trailed off. Harry replied, "No – no, just go enjoy your Christmas. It wouldn't be fair to let this - " he gestured to his ash pile, " – ruin everyone else's day. Go…GO!" he practically shouted as Ron started to protest. "I can be alone by myself. In fact, I'd rather do that right now. So just leave me alone. Unwrap your presents. Make merry…not that kind of merry though," Harry said as he saw the look on Ron's face. Ron stood up, and looking slightly affronted, gathered his enormous pile of gifts and walked out the door, giving Harry one last sympathetic look.

As soon as Ron was gone, Harry muttered, "Accio key!" and a tiny whirring noise was heard. Harry caught the key easily in his right hand, opened a drawer in the nightstand, and saw…another drawer. He put the key in that drawer's lock and it opened easily. Inside was…another drawer. This went on for quite some time. About 5 minutes later, Harry had finally opened the last drawer, which a crumb may have fit in, but certainly nothing else. Harry glanced around, and muttered another spell under his breath. The drawer slowly began to expand, until it was about the size of a shoebox. Inside it lay a book that had a well-worn brown leather cover with yellowed pages, and a spare quill. Harry picked both of these items up, and opened the book to the date December 25, 1997. He sucked on the end of the acid green quill, placed it on the paper, and it began to write on its own:

Dear Diary,

I guess it went as planned. I managed to make myself actually look like I was crying this time. I must have looked a little pathetic, though – a 6th year prefect, sobbing his eyes out over a few Christmas trinkets? My presents didn't even explode; I just set the wrapping paper on fire after I opened them all. Not too shabby, I guess…I got this quill from Rita Skeeter, who is still trying to repay me back for 4th year, a very nice shield from Sirius (I think it has some sort of enchantment on it, because when I touched it, my hands started glowing an odd sort of blue), and yet another sweater from Mrs. Weasley. At least it isn't maroon.

But I still don't feel very satisfied. I'm not sure why I'm even doing this, it just gives me a joy to destroy things right now. People already look at me, so I'm just giving them something to look at, I guess.

Uh-oh, I hear Ron coming back.

Always,

~ Harry

Harry quickly shut the diary, put it in the drawer, muttered another enchantment, and slammed all the drawers shut as the door opened and Dumbledore strolled in.


	2. Chapter 2

"Harry, do you realize how this could effect you?" Dumbledore gave Harry his piercing blue stare. Harry avoided the gaze and looked at all the whirring silver contraptions in Dumbledore's office. There were so many memories at this school, and yet he couldn't even remember when things had begun to change. Then, all of the sudden, he was falling, falling into a deep pool of murky substance, falling with no control over himself. He was spinning into a dark tunnel and he couldn't stop.

It was a breezy, warm summer day at 4 Privet Drive. Harry gazed out his window, wondering when his pet would return with a prize for him to clean up. He had finished the endless chores that the Dursley family assigned him, but preferring to just take a break, had sneaked up to his room to rest for a while. He looked in his mirror. His hands were bloody and his fingernails were ripped down to the tender pink flesh. His lips were chapped, and his emerald eyes, which normally sparkled with curiosity, were duller than gravel in the street in which he cleaned Dudley's "experiment" off of earlier. His normally unruly hair was almost flat, mainly from sweat. He took out a comb and was just about to fix it when Hedewig flew through the open window with some sort of strange parcel and dropped it on his bed. Harry stood up and tentatively tiptoed over to the package. He reached out a hand and snatched the paper off of it, and read:

To Whom it May Concern:

I have witnessed many horrors in my life. I was not able to mention them all in the many books I wrote, but they are all in here. You may look at them as you please, but I hope in this time of trouble they will help a few people understand why everything needed to happen. Please use this for good purposes.

Good luck.

10-31-87

Harry glared at the note for a moment, until the urge to open the package overtook him. He sat on his bed and unwrapped the worn string and aged paper until a silver box fell out. It had a heavy lock on it, but it was rusted and Harry broke it off simply by kicking it. He opened the box and peered inside.

There was a strange sort of silvery liquid inside. It was like wind-turned- liquid, or light-turned-solid. Harry immediately recognized the substance known in the wizarding world as 'Pensieve'. Curiosity got the better of him, and, with a quick glance to make sure no one else was in the room with him, he touched the Pensieve with his index finger and was thrown into the substance.

Harry landed back in Dumbledore's office with a jolt. The old man seemed to take no notice of his sudden and abrupt return, and Harry realized that it was only his memory that made him disappear. Dumbledore looked slightly put off when he said, "I repeat, Harry, do you realize how this could effect you?"

"No, sir, I do not."

The old man seemed to deflate like a beach ball with a hole in it. "It means, young Potter, that someone was planning an attack on you. We're going to need extra protection on you again, even if it means you would have to go to the Dursley household for the rest of the term. It's the only place you are completely safe, where Voldemort cannot get you."

Harry looked shocked. "But – sir – I can't go back to the Dursleys! It's horrible there! I'm sure that *whoever* did this was just pulling a stunt of some sort. They wanted to prove that they could get close to me, but they didn't want to actually harm me. The fire had to be magically contained, the chemicals in the paper and my covers would have set off all sorts of other fires unless some sort of potion was poured on them first." Eat that, Snape, Harry thought to himself as he recalled creating the difficult Flamus Extremus Potion. It was by far the hardest potion he ever made, since all the ingredients needed to be stored at below 50 degrees Fahrenheit for a week to make the chemical work. He doubted the potions master believed him capable of making 'FEP', as it was nicknamed.

Dumbledore twiddled his thumbs. "Or they simply could have bought a muggle fire repellent, such as that goo that they put in fire extinguishers. Or, better yet, they could have just put water around the presents."

Damn it! Harry thought. Fucking smart-ass bastard. Why couldn't he have thought of something as simple as that? Hanging around with Hermione had too many complications.

"Professor, Longbottom has just melted another spare cauldron. My last one, in fact." Snape had stuck his greasy head uninvited into the office. "I'm debating on pairing him up with another pair of students, or avoiding disaster altogether and giving him the old punishment. Filch opts for the old punishment, do you have any suggestions?"

"Eh – I'll be right there. Harry, go back to your room and think about what we've discussed, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me. You know where I'll be." And with that, Dumbledore whisked out of his office. Snape followed him, after sending Harry a particularly nasty smirk. He reminded Harry of Draco Malfoy in to many ways it was hard to believe.

Harry just sat in the chair, thankful that he had just gotten out of getting sent back to his dreaded summer home. He pondered for a moment, then set off to his room to look at what else the Pensieve he had received that summer had even more gruesome ideas for chaos.


End file.
